Larsen chuffed to retain star duo

Mzava and Lamola have committed to Arrows for another season, having initially signed for the club on two-year deals with an option from Mpumalanga Black Arrows and Bloemfontein Celtic respectively.

The influential duo previously worked under Larsen at Phunya Sele Sele.

Mzava, who played 32 games this past season and slotted two penalties, was deployed at right-back as Siyabonga Dube was struggling for form.

"Mzava gives you that versatility; centre-half and right-back and he's ever-present in the team," Larsen tells KickOff.com.

"He's hardly ever injured. He's a super fit player. He's experienced now although he's in the mid-20s. He's been here since the age of 19 when he joined Celtic. So it's almost six years in the PSL.

"He's very experienced but still relatively young, so he's a great acquisition for the club and he earns the respect of his teammates.

"He's got a great attitude and never-say-die attitude, a winning attitude. We need players like that in our team. So we are actually very lucky to have a player of his calibre at our club."

Lamola netted nine goals and provided six assists to help Abafana Bes'thende finish in the top eight in the league for the second year in a row.

Regarding Lamola, Larsen says: "I thought both our strikers have done well. One got seven goals and [Knox] Mutizwa as well with seven goals. It's like eight goals in 23, 24 games. It's a good return from the two players.

"The system we play as well, sometimes they play together, sometimes we only play with one. So they shared that responsibility quite well and complemented each other nicely.

"Also I think they got the best out of each other because they put pressure on each other to start games and to score goals. For us that was a good thing because we scored a lot of goals last season due to the fact that those two were scoring."

Arrows will be banking on the pair when they get the 2018/19 season underway against Mamelodi Sundowns in the MTN8 quarter finals in Pretoria in August.